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The sun is comprised of hydrogen and helium in a plasma state. When hydrogen and helium combine, the reaction gives off energy. The center of the sun is hotter than 15 million Kelvin. It has been burning for an estimated five billion years; in another five billion years, it will use up the majority of its hydrogen and become a red giant. After that happens, it will only be a matter of time before the sun collapses down to a white dwarf.

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The diameter of the sun is approximately 864,938 miles, though there is a slight difference between its polar and equatorial diameters. As the sun is nearly in the shape of a perfect sphere, this diameter difference is only about 6.2 miles.

The sun can be described as a yellow dwarf star, about 4.5 billion years old and halfway through its life cycle. Situated at the center of Earth's solar system, the sun is an almost spherical ball of hot plasma with a diameter approximately 109 times greater than Earth's. About 75 percent of the sun's mass is comprised of hydrogen, with the remainder of its mass consisting primarily of helium and much lesser quantities of heavier elements that include oxygen, carbon and iron.

Columbia University explains that energy from the sun travels to other planets through electromagnetic waves in a process called radiation. This way, energy can be transferred through empty space without relying on matter.